[5] He served as Director of the London School of Economics, making him the first person of Indian origin to head a higher education institute in the United Kingdom.

He was well known for his formidable intellectual powers in the select company of central bankers and economic statesmen such as the "Committee of the Thirty" set up by the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

His tutor Austin Robinson regarded him as his best tutee over his entire tenure as a fellow of King's [citation needed] He was a member of the Indian Economic Service and served in Government of India.

It was during this period marked by turbulence in the foreign exchange markets that Patel's formidable intellectual powers came into use in sessions of the Bank for International Settlements.

He had to handle student protests about LSE's investments in South Africa and their support of Winston Silcott, who had been convicted of the murder of a police officer in the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham.

[11] Indraprasad Gordhanbhai Patel was known as Baba 'IG' from his childhood days in Vadodara, then the capital of the princely state ruled by the Gaekwads of Baroda, where he was born.